


Eris's Bridegroom: 003 Ends

by abundantlyqueer



Series: Eris's Bridegroom [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-28
Updated: 2011-03-28
Packaged: 2017-10-17 08:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abundantlyqueer/pseuds/abundantlyqueer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>”You aren’t haunted by the war. You miss it.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Eris's Bridegroom: 003 Ends

**Author's Note:**

> The ‘100 prompts’ thingie, done to the tune of John’s experiences in Afghanistan.
> 
> Buyer beware, the sum total of this is going to be bare-faced glamorization of war and the (mostly) men who have loved her.

It doesn’t end in Afghanistan, with a bullet through the shoulder. It ends in England, with a thick white envelope dropped onto a hospital bed.

Sanger walks into John’s hospital room to find him sitting in the visitor’s chair with his feet propped up on the window sill. John kicks his feet down and stands up to shake Sanger’s hand. John’s still desert-tanned, his hair tight and sun-blond, and he’s clearly lost very little condition despite six weeks of hospitalization. He’s steady on his feet, balanced and fluid except for the sling on his left arm and the heavily strapped dressings on his left shoulder.

“You look good,” Sanger says seriously. “How are you?”

“Bored, feeling a bit useless,” John says, a hint of a smile curving his mouth.

“How’s the hip?”

“Good as new. I could go running if my shoulder could take the jolting.”

“And the hand?”

“Sod all grip strength but steady as a rock, thank God,” John says, lifting his forearm in the sling to illustrate. “Probably never be good enough for a rifle again, but a scalpel’s light, at least.”

“So Brookes talked to you about the promotion and reassignment,” Sanger says.

John nods.

“And you’re taking it.”

“Yes, of course. I mean, it’s a bit ironic … my grand dramatic gesture in life was walking away from a career as a surgeon to become a soldier. Now the only way I get to stay a soldier is to walk right back again. Still … if Hinde had made it out of the field alive, he’d still have needed a bloody good trauma surgeon … and I can be bloody good, when I have to.”

“John,” Sanger says sharply, “what did Brookes say to you? _Exactly_ what did he say?”

John pulls his chin back slightly in surprise.

“Um … promotion to Major, reassignment as a medical officer.”

“To _where_?”

John shakes his head.

“He didn’t – I mean, I assumed Camp Bastion because he was banging on about my experience at Royal Victoria, but you know me, the closer to the dirt they put me the happier I’ll be.”

Sanger grimaces, and John’s expression turns suddenly stony.

“They mean here, general surgery at a base in England,” Sanger says. “They’re not sending you back.”

John blinks several times in quick succession, and the corner of his jaw flexes.

“I’m sorry, John,” Sanger says.

“I – I can’t stay here,” John says. “I'm needed there.”

Sanger doesn’t answer. John’s eyes fire up.

“What? Have they got so many trauma surgeons over there that they don’t have room for me?”

“You haven’t practiced for ten years.”

“Give me a break,” John snaps. “I do surgeries with med tech supplies in choppers taking RPG fire. I haven’t lost my edge, believe me.”

“I know,” Sanger says wearily. “John, I know … that’s the problem. There’s nothing left of you but fucking edge.”

John rocks back slightly, lifts his chin.

“It’s you,” he says very quietly. “You’re telling them not to return me to active duty.”

Sanger closes his eyes, opens them again.

“Yes. You need to – you’ve lost your balance, John,” he says.

“There’s fuck all wrong with my _balance_ ,” John says, his voice ice cold. “I made a soldier’s choice – the wounded had a better chance if I _fought_.”

Sanger’s gaze slides aside from John’s face.

“I’m not – I’m recommending you for the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross,” he says.

“Fuck you,” John says evenly.

“Take the promotion and reassignment,” Sanger says. “Or take an honorable discharge on medical grounds … because of your shoulder.”

He holds out a thick white envelope to John.

“Here’s your reassignment papers,” he says.

John stares at him. Sanger drops the envelope onto the foot of the bed and turns away.

John stays there, staring, for a long time after Sanger’s gone. When he finally moves, he feels the strangest twinge in his right thigh, a long thin thread of pain that makes him catch his breath and ease himself down into the visitor’s chair again.


End file.
